What is 'A Cover"

[Porthos]

I enjoy reading the threads written by line cooks and such and one term is used that as an outsider I just don't know the working definition of. What is a "cover?" It is used when discussing the quantity of food production but that's all I get.

Porthos Potwatcher

The Unrelenting Carnivore

[piperdown]

I enjoy reading the threads written by line cooks and such and one term is used that as an outsider I just don't know the working definition of.  What is a "cover?"  It is used when discussing the quantity of food production but that's all I get.

Porthos Potwatcher

The Unrelenting Carnivore

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A cover is basically a customer. So two people at a table, or a two top, would be two covers. It's usually used to describe the number of people done in a night. For example "last night was pretty slow we only did 85 covers."

[Porthos]

A cover is basically a customer. So two people at a table, or a two top, would be two covers. It's usually used to describe the number of people done in a night. For example "last night was  pretty slow we only did 85 covers."

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Thank you.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Porthos (log)

[Busboy]

I believe that in French, a "couvert" also refers to the place setting which, of course, is a fine shorthand for a diner, which is how it came into usage in English as piperdown explains upthread.

[mkayahara]

I believe that in French, a "covert" also refers to the place setting which, of course, is a fine shorthand for a diner, which is how it came into usage in English as piperdown explains upthread.

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True, except that it's spelled "couvert".

[Busboy]

I believe that in French, a "covert" also refers to the place setting which, of course, is a fine shorthand for a diner, which is how it came into usage in English as piperdown explains upthread.

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True, except that it's spelled "couvert".

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I don't see why I should be able to spell or type any better in English than I do in French.

[Fat Guy]

The "cover" (some places say "customer count") is an important metric for restaurants, because when combined with the "check average" it forms the basis for a lot of sales and inventory projections.

Covers are mostly a concern of the back of the house. Servers tend to talk more in terms of tables. It actually takes about the same amount of labor to serve a two-top as it does to serve a four-top. So two servers serving 12 covers each could have very different nights if one has three four-tops and the other has six two-tops.

[ChefCarey]

I enjoy reading the threads written by line cooks and such and one term is used that as an outsider I just don't know the working definition of.  What is a "cover?"  It is used when discussing the quantity of food production but that's all I get.

Porthos Potwatcher

The Unrelenting Carnivore

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A cover is a butt in a chair in a restaurant. Period.

[chiantiglace]

Actually, where that term came from was from a restaurant in New York I believe (I dont know the name) where throughout the night they would collect the covers from each plate sent out into the dining room. At the end of the night the chef would be able to walk over to the rack with all the sold "covers" and count what they did for the night.

Edited January 22, 2007 by chiantiglace (log)

[David D'Aprix]

Actually, where that term came from was from a restaurant in New York I believe (I dont know the name) where throughout the night they would collect the covers from each plate sent out into the dining room.  At the end of the night the chef would be able to walk over to the rack with all the sold "covers" and count what they did for the night.

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Sorry, that sounds like "urban legend." As an alum of the CIA, I remember all sorts of silly stories told as fact. Do you think a restaurant would really have that many covers on hand?

[Fat Guy]

I think it is surely derived from couvert. The couvert refers to the place setting, not the actual person in the seat, and in formal language cover also refers to the place setting (from Encarta, "a place set at a table, e.g. in a restaurant; covers laid for 16 guests"), however cover in current restaurant accounting-speak refers to a customer count.

[markk]

The Italian word for it is "coperto", and as it was explained to me by an Italian restaurateur, the "cover" charge on your bill in an Italian restaurant, usually listed as "pane e coperto" but somtimes simply called the "coperto" represents the restaurant's cost of setting a place for a dinner, whatever costs are involved in the laundering of the cloths and napkins, the cost of washing the silverware, the glassware, filling the bread basket, etc. And they also use the term to mean the number of people dining, the same as we're using it (we did so-many "coperti" tonight). As to whether the cost of setting the place is the official origin of the term, I can't say for sure, but believe it is too.

[Daniel Rogov]

Indeed the term couvert originated almost in France and did so almost immediately following the Revolution. At that time many chefs, unemployed because their once royal or monied patrons had encounters with either guillotine or the bankruptcy courts, opened restaurants, those especially in Paris, Lyon and Nice. Because the restaurants also served as cafes and people might come in to spend an hour or more over nothing more than cup of coffee, the law entitled such places to take a "cover charge", a minimum fee for setting the places at the table.

Later, in both France and Italy, the couvert or coperto was dropped at cafes and took on a somewhat new meaning in restaurants, a charge being made for each place setting (or couvert) at the table. That charge generally included the place setting, replacement of tablecloths, bread and butter. The charge persists today primarily in restaurants that are hotel-based.

The term has come to refer broadly to the number of places taken during a service. It is indeed a back-of-the-house concern, for the bookkeepers always know precisely how many couverts one must "do" in any given meal or day in order to reach the daily/weekly/monthly or annual break-even point.

[chiantiglace]

Actually, where that term came from was from a restaurant in New York I believe (I dont know the name) where throughout the night they would collect the covers from each plate sent out into the dining room.  At the end of the night the chef would be able to walk over to the rack with all the sold "covers" and count what they did for the night.

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Sorry, that sounds like "urban legend." As an alum of the CIA, I remember all sorts of silly stories told as fact. Do you think a restaurant would really have that many covers on hand?

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Yes. I dont see why not.

Of course the word has evolved over time and the meaning has gone through some alterations, but stories or "urban legends", in some peoples minds, I believe are the reason why they are still used today.

[scottie]

The term has come to refer broadly to the number of places taken during a service. It is indeed a back-of-the-house concern, for the bookkeepers always know precisely how many couverts one must "do" in any given meal or day in order to reach the daily/weekly/monthly or annual break-even point.

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We call that break-even point the "par". As in, the par for lunch in the downstairs dining room is 30 covers, to pull a number out of a hat.

The accountant's office has a list of the upstairs/ downstairs, lunch/ dinner pars posted. I'd hate to have that thing staring down at me during the slow times.

[Busboy]

The term has come to refer broadly to the number of places taken during a service. It is indeed a back-of-the-house concern, for the bookkeepers always know precisely how many couverts one must "do" in any given meal or day in order to reach the daily/weekly/monthly or annual break-even point.

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And, speaking from experience, a front of the house concern, as well for those of us in America whose tips (and bragging rights) depend on the count of the nights couverts, as well.

[phaelon56]

Actually, where that term came from was from a restaurant in New York I believe (I dont know the name) where throughout the night they would collect the covers from each plate sent out into the dining room.  At the end of the night the chef would be able to walk over to the rack with all the sold "covers" and count what they did for the night.

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Sorry, that sounds like "urban legend." As an alum of the CIA, I remember all sorts of silly stories told as fact. Do you think a restaurant would really have that many covers on hand?

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I've heard sillier. I waited table back in the late 1970's here in Syracuse in our little town's first "Fern Bar" bistro. The assistant manager was absolutely convinced that the restaurant slang "in the weeds" had been invented in our establishment because we had "Garden Cafe" as part of our name and we were often in the weeds (every weekend as a matter of fact).

But she didn't think we invented "covers".

[2roost]

As previously stated a "cover" is an ass in a seat.

Some restaurants only track "entrees" but that is rare these days in the age of small plates and tapas blurring the lines of "entree".

As a server I am much more concerned with "covers" than "tables".

I've had horrible 15 table nights ( 12 deuces, a 3 and 2 X 4 tops = 35 seats @ $35 a head) and brilliant 2 table nights (flipped a party of 16 at Christmas Season = 32 seats @$150 a head).